Jack Reacher
The opening salvo in what producers probably hope will be a long running franchise, the release of Jack Reacher, could not have come at a worse possible time. The original material comes from a series of thrillers by writer Lee Child, who has already produced 17 Jack Reacher novels, in which the eponymous hero, an ex-MP who has chosen the life of a drifter, nevertheless ends up useing a mix of profound insight and physical strength to solve crimes. The fact that Tom Cruise has been cast as the hero might be a sufficient turn off for fans of the books. The fact that the first installment, based on a novel titled One Shot, about a sniper killing of innocent people heading home from work, resonates in all the wrong ways with the trauma created by the Sandy Hook shootings, might turn others off. For those who don’t care about either of these issues, Jack Reacher is a superior thriller that has both a good plot and solid action sequences.
Chinese Zodiac (十二生肖)
Jackie Chan (成龍) has produced some of the most memorable action features to come out of Hong Kong’s film industry, but now, with age and the impact of the Hollywood experience, his stunts have been toned down. Unfortunately, he has not grown as a filmmaker, and efforts to inject more drama and character interaction into his films has rarely been successful. Jackie Chan films were always primarily about Jackie being the wonderfully talented Jackie, and all the rest was just background for his star turn. Chinese Zodiac is a by-the-numbers story about a master thief who discovers his conscience and uses his skills to help recover treasures looted from the Summer Palace during the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Chan is a skilled operator, and some of the special effect scenes look good, but the story itself feels cobbled together, and the introduction of rather obvious wire work tells a story about Chan’s acrobatic abilities all by itself.
Wreck-It Ralph
The story of a video game villain who wants to be a good guy provides the pretext for a joyride through the world of arcade games that mixes up technical finesse with a solid dose of storytime sentimentality. Wreck-It Ralph doesn’t want to wreck things anymore, so he starts hopping through a multiverse of games, meeting up with all kinds of new friends from early version pixilated Pac-men to high-definition street fighters, and trying to save the world. Ralph is voiced by the talented actor John C. Reilly, and the absence of A-list stars from the cast is a bonus. It is a look back in wonder at the potency of games and the hold, like it or not, they have over our imagination. Tight pace, life affirming, uplifting and just a little bit sad, Wreck-It Ralph is festive season gold.
Ripples of Desire (花漾)
Following on from Spider Lilies (刺青), another lush historical romance from Taiwanese director Zero Chou (周美玲) featuring a cast of young local stars. Michelle Chen (陳妍希) and Ivy Chen (陳意涵) play a pair of courtesans, sisters with vastly different ideas about love and their prospective paths in life. They are protected and exploited by their madam, played by show host Sandra Ng (吳君如) as they navigate the dangerous shoals of love. A big budget production, but despite the lavish costumes and set pieces fight scenes, the acting retains too much the flavor of a TV soap opera.
Another Woman’s Life
Based on a French novel by Frederique Deghelt, starring Juliette Binoche and directed by Sylvie Testud, herself an accomplished actress (Sagan and Lourdes) and novelist in her own right, Another Woman’s Life is one of those high-concept films that sound superficially interesting, but which fail to either make sense or create believable drama due to an unwillingness to explain the central conceit. Binoche is an engaging young woman who falls asleep one day and wakes up a decade later with no memory of her intervening life. She has become a high-powered executive, pushed her marriage to the brink of divorce and become a mother. Suddenly she has no understanding of her new life, and this is used to generate some fish-out-of-water humor, but audiences are likely to be too confused to laugh.
As Taiwan’s second most populous city, Taichung looms large in the electoral map. Taiwanese political commentators describe it — along with neighboring Changhua County — as Taiwan’s “swing states” (搖擺州), which is a curious direct borrowing from American election terminology. In the early post-Martial Law era, Taichung was referred to as a “desert of democracy” because while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was winning elections in the north and south, Taichung remained staunchly loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That changed over time, but in both Changhua and Taichung, the DPP still suffers from a “one-term curse,” with the
William Liu (劉家君) moved to Kaohsiung from Nantou to live with his boyfriend Reg Hong (洪嘉佑). “In Nantou, people do not support gay rights at all and never even talk about it. Living here made me optimistic and made me realize how much I can express myself,” Liu tells the Taipei Times. Hong and his friend Cony Hsieh (謝昀希) are both active in several LGBT groups and organizations in Kaohsiung. They were among the people behind the city’s 16th Pride event in November last year, which gathered over 35,000 people. Along with others, they clearly see Kaohsiung as the nexus of LGBT rights.
Jan. 26 to Feb. 1 Nearly 90 years after it was last recorded, the Basay language was taught in a classroom for the first time in September last year. Over the following three months, students learned its sounds along with the customs and folktales of the Ketagalan people, who once spoke it across northern Taiwan. Although each Ketagalan settlement had its own language, Basay functioned as a common trade language. By the late 19th century, it had largely fallen out of daily use as speakers shifted to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), surviving only in fragments remembered by the elderly. In
Dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s (艾未未) famous return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been overshadowed by the astonishing news of the latest arrests of senior military figures for “corruption,” but it is an interesting piece of news in its own right, though more for what Ai does not understand than for what he does. Ai simply lacks the reflective understanding that the loneliness and isolation he imagines are “European” are simply the joys of life as an expat. That goes both ways: “I love Taiwan!” say many still wet-behind-the-ears expats here, not realizing what they love is being an
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